Chapter 260 - Burnt Alive

Eiro tried to get the jump on Edward, but he was able to immediately see through what the Demon was trying to do, as if he was predicting his actions. The Demi-Lich just managed to dodge Eiro while making the least amount of movement possible, as if trying to mock him while he was at it.

He swung his dagger forward toward Edward while his body was giving off steam due to the heat of the fire-infusion inside of him. At the same time, Eiro summoned his Three of Swords and quickly activated it, trying to get as many blades going against this enemy as possible.

Slash, miss, slash, miss, slash, miss. 

Eiro was slowly starting to get fed up with this, but Edward seemingly just had fun, "Oh, what may be the issue here, my dear friend? You are moving around in a slightly... predictable way."

"Shut it." The Demon growled loudly. Once more, he jumped at Edward and the Demi-Lich dodged, but all of a sudden, Eiro heard a sound from the other side of the manor. Something was shifting in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the door to the saferoom was being opened.

Startled by this realization, Eiro's body jolted without him being able to do anything about it, and due to this sudden, rash movement he was able to cut a bit into Edward's clothes.

Eiro understood what was going on... Edward was using the investigative abilities he had shown in the form of Bahlsen to figure out what Eiro was going to do next due to the way that his muscles spasmed in anticipation or how he was looking at certain spots or trying to set certain attacks up.

But this just now was nothing but reflex. It wasn't anything that Eiro did on purpose, so it seemed like the Demi-Lich wasn't able to see through it. And so, Eiro looked at the figure in front of him and stopped for a moment. He took a deep, deep breath and stared at the Demi-Lich while diving into one of his memories.

A memory of when Eiro was still far more wild, of when he still didn't know any skills. Slowly, the Demon tried to adapt the mindset that he had back then in this rudimentary, vile manner.

Eiro mixed this purely instinctual movement in with his skill-based movement, and just wildly swung his arms to the side, as if flailing them around.

Luckily, Edward seemed to have been caught off guard by that. At least, he wasn't able to dodge as easily as before, and Eiro was able to cut through a bit of Edward's clothes once more. It meant that Eiro's tactic worked, at least somehow. 

But maybe it was because the quality of Eiro's combat style had been lowered considerably in exchange for a bit of that 'instinct', but at some point, Edward was able to dodge Eiro basically perfectly again.

But at the very least, one thing was clear. Edward had to concentrate on dodging completely, and he wasn't really able to properly counterattack. So at the very least, the two of them seemed somewhat equally matched with how it was going right now. To an extent, at least.

And so, Eiro had to use something to shift that balance to his favor, and without hesitation, he chose to do so by taking a small white cloth pouch out of his treasury while making a swinging-motion.

The bag hit the ground at an immense speed and all that could be heard was something shattering. Just a moment later, a white explosion appeared inbetween Edward and Eiro.

"Well, that was rather unexpected... These are Sacred Flames, are they not? You realize you are more vulnerable to those than I am, do you not?" Edward asked, but Eiro just smirked in response to that incredibly obvious statement.

While one of the spiking flames was still in front of him, Eiro immediately made use of some of the snow that was gathering outside and melted it with magic before infusing his body with it.

Immediately, he tried to go for his 'mana bullet' trick and shot it through the sacred flames. Eiro's mana caught fire and a bullet of sacred flames shot toward Edward at immense speeds.

This was something that Edward definitely would have never been able to predict, and even though he may have realized what was happening in the last second, he was unable to react, and soon had white flames that were eating apart the Demi-Lich's black, silver and red suit.

Eiro cut through the notification in front of him saying that he damaged the Demi-Lich, and then grinned broadly, "How the tables have turned." 

Immediately, the Demon pushed out more and more mana out of his body that he used to try and control the Sacred Flames. 

He swung the dangerous white fire toward Edward as if it was a whip, and was trying to fill out this whole room around him with this weakness of the Demi-Lich.

And at this point, Eiro was fully in control of the situation. Sure, his plan was more than obvious, but Edward had no choice but to play along if he didn't want to be massively injured. The Demi-Lich shifted through the flames trying to minimize his exposure to the sacred flames while slowly tightening the flames around Edward more and more, as if trying to put him into a cage that he simply couldn't escape.

And then, Eiro did it. Edward wasn't able to move any longer without touching the flames, and with the same tone of voice that he had before, he spoke, "Seems like this is the end for one of us, does it not?" 

"Seems like it. But don't make it sound like it could be me, because both of us know that it's not me." Eiro pointed out as he slowly tightened the 'box' of sacred flames even more as he started to slowly damage the Demi-Lich.

"Yeah, about that..." Edward muttered quietly, and all of a sudden, Eiro could hear echoing footsteps from behind him that somehow only appeared just now. Usually he would have been able to notice them far earlier, but Edward might have done something about that to shift the way Eiro perceived the things around him. In the same way that the Demi-Lich managed to hide himself and his nature so well.

"Eiro!" A familiar voice screamed out from behind the Demon, and Eiro snapped his neck around to look at its source. It was Clementine, just standing there in the doorframe, breathing heavily from running here.

But it wasn't just Clementine. It was everyone. 

Clementine, Sammy, Arc, Rudy, Felix, even Avalin and Leon. Behind them, James, Jess, Krog and Gobo. And at the very back, Eiro could see Bavet in his go-to humanoid form with an emotionless expression. It was one that Eiro saw just earlier today. It was the same expression that the man that was being controlled by Edward earlier had.

While the Demon was staring at them in shock and confusion, and most importantly fear at what might happen to them, Edward seemed to have taken this chance.

He jumped out of the cage of sacred flames, his clothes still burning with them, as he pushed his hand around the back of Eiro's neck.

The sacred flames jumped over from the Undead over to the Demon, and his flesh was immediately causing an immense spark of those white flames as Eiro's whole body caught on fire as he was standing there.

His unholy nature was fueling the holy fire that was set out to kill him.

Slowly, but surely, the flames were feeding their way through Eiro's body, and the Demon just had to stand there.

Eiro fell to the ground as his legs were destroyed by the Holy energies, and his family and friends were watching this happen. They were just staring at Eiro as he was dying a horrendously painful death.

He wasn't even able to scream, as Eiro's throat was one of the first things that had been destroyed by the flames. So all that he could do was lay there while the Sacred Falmes were devouring him.

"So much about that, my dear friend. Now let's get this over with quickly. I would like you to witness the creation of my most perfect piece of art... using the most perfect parts." Edward stepped toward the group of people in front of him after simply brushing off the rest of the sacred flames that were left on his own body.

Edward slowly stepped up to the one standing in the very front, Clementine. Compared to everyone here, her Life Force was the strongest. It was even more potent than Eiro's, despite him constantly trying to refine and strengthen it over the years. It was just naturally pure and powerful for her.

Slowly, Edward leaned forward and looked deep into her eyes, "What a beautiful being you are. So disgustingly full of life. Oh, how much I wish to drain it from you and watch it wilt away."

The Demi-Lich stretched his hand out toward Clementine as everyone in the room was stunned by the pressure that the Demi-Lich was giving off, while Avalin and Leon already passed out. Eiro was actually somewhat glad, as it meant that they didn't have to watch all this happen.

But just a moment, a single moment before Edward touched Clementine, everything around Eiro froze. The flames were still burning and shifting, but they were only causing pain to him instead of still feeding on his flesh. They weren't spreading anymore.

"Ah... how disappointing." A voice muttered out. It sounded mature, but still young. Full of energy and strength, strenght that Eiro himself was lacking.

The next moment, he could feel his chin, or what was left of it, being lifted up to let him look at what was in front of him.

It was a black and white, glowing figure in glorious armor with a single sword at his side. He seemed to be a human. It seemed like he spoke up, although Eiro wasn't sure. He was lacking any sort of details, like a nose, eyes or mouth, to be sure. His whole face was just a blank slate of skin. But it was a different voice, that was for sure. This time, it was more rough, more... experienced, as if this person went through a lot in their life.

"Well, with what he was given, he sure did a lot. Don't you think?" 

The person that held his chin was the one speaking, Eiro just knew, although he didn't know how he knew.

Then, another one came into view. This time it was a slim, relatively short man holding a staff that was about two feet taller than him while his cloak was sliding over the ground. This was the one that spoke first. He had slightly pointed ears, so he seemed to be an elf, or at least a half-elf or something. But again, his face was just a blank slate of skin.

And before Eiro knew it, a third one came into view. This time, it seemed to be a Rhida, a rather rare race of people that descended from Lizardmen, but with the same sort of face as the other two. He had somewhat scaly bits over his skin, although it was smooth like a human's for the most part. He was wearing leather armor and had a bow strapped to his back with a dagger at his hip.

His voice sounded somewhat viscious, and unpleasant to listen to, although Eiro wasn't sure if it was just an aspect that Rhida had to them.

"A lot? He simply wasted so many chances to rise to the top, exchanging power for something as useless as 'Family'."

All of a sudden, Eiro could hear a laugh from behind himself, "Hey, Family isn't useless, you know? It's good to have somewhere to go back to." He said, quickly joining the others after walking over behind them, leaning onto the short mage's shoulder. This one... was dressed pretty weirdly. It was a style that he had never seen before.

The material of his clothes seemed to be cloth, or at least the pants... The shirt had a weird pattern on it while made with something weird mixed into it that Eiro didn't recognize. The same with the buttons, some of them were something Eiro had never seen before.

He was wearing a jacket made of leather with a cloth hood stitched onto it that the human man had pulled over his head. And he had a satchel hanging at the side of his body as well, although it seemed to be made using methods Eiro didn't really recognize either. And once more, this man's face was just blank.

The man just stood there, "I mean, the enemy this time had a pretty unfair advantage as well, right?"

"I guess you are right." The Rhida man said, and the weirdly-dressed man suggested something else, "So, what do you think we should do? Give him another go at this?"